UKC

'Faith'...'Hope' and 'Charity'. The holy trinity of Cwm Idwal classic V Diffs which have carried those grades since time immemorial.
Personally I think that 'Hope' for example should qualify for a technical grade for two or three moves on that fine route must be at least 4a/b not least because of the polished nature of the route.
Let's face it 'Napes Needle' was a traditional V Diff that has been regraded by the F&R guidebook team to Hard Severe.
I know...grade drift and all that but don't routes that are sheened by a million rock boots get harder rather than easier ?
What do others think ?

On the controversial subject of a abseil anchor at the top of the horrendous descent gully.
Why not ?
This is hardly pristine mountain territory. It's a nasty,eroded scarred rubbish shoot.
If I can bounce down on the end of a rope rather than arse over tit then that'll do me !

In reply to Jonno: it would probably make more sense to ab down suicide wall and leave the gully for people to scramble down without the risk of ropes/numpties landing on their heads.

In reply to Jonno:

Hope really isn't that hard, as long as it's dry. The Twin Cracks are more deadly in legend than reality, and on the rest of the route the climbing didn't seem that polished, although I moved out left away from the obvious gear and ran it out a fair amount.

Compared to the sub-Cneiffion Rib it's a piece of piss (now there's a route that needs regrading to suit my ego).


As for the descent gully, there's a spike of rock that has been worn perfectly smooth by countless abseil ropes, why would another anchor be any better?

In reply to Jonno:

What's wrong with downclimbing on the descent - no need to ab.

And the "perilous twin cracks" are easy.

Get a grip man

In reply to JonC: I agree, theres numerous descents Ive done at Stanage and elsewhere on the peak (and I dont mean downclimbing routes) which are much trickier tha ncoming down from Idwal slabs - its easy.
Hope is vdiff everywhere I think, I dont remember finding the twin cracks difficult at all. Lazarus above is at least a grade harder and that gets S 4a I think, so upgrading hope would be silly. And in fact The Arete on the continuation wall at vdiff is a harder proposition than hope too.

In reply to JonC:
Managed to get lost on Hope, and rather than going left along a crack, went right over a blank slab for 60m. Great fun, expecially knowing that my "belay" consisted of an in situe nut.
I never did get the chance to thank the bloke climbing the route who shouted "I think your lost mate, you want to be over here, there's tonnes of gear" as a filled my pants heading up the slab.

In reply to Dan_S:

lol but why were you belayed off an old in situ nut for heaven's sake? all the ledges have masses of pro don't they?

In reply to Jonno:

See: http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=87484&v=1#1181690

I assume you're trolling on this one, Jonno!

In reply to Jonno:

On that thread, there were several references to regular and repeated call outs to climbers injured on the descent off Idwal. A couple of posts from that thread might bear repeating:

QUOTE
In reply to gary:

*Does* the Idwal Slabs descent get many call-outs, though?

Of the 21 callouts so far in 2004, 19 were callouts to walkers, 1 to a scrambler and 1 to a climber, on Tryfan. No callouts to climbers injured or stuck on the descent route itself.

In 2003, of 68 callouts, 7 were to climbers, mostly on Tryfan again. Two callouts were to Idwal: 1 to a team benighted on their first multipitch climb and one to a team that couldn't actually *find* the descent route. No callouts to climbers injured or stuck on the descent route itself.


In 2002, of 24 callouts, 7 were to climbers, yet again mostly on tryfan. Again 2 were to Idwal: 1 to a leader fall on route, the other to a team reported as overdue . It turned out that this team were overdue because they'd stopped to help another team get down the descent route safely.

So, of 15 callouts to climbers in the last 3 years, only 4 involved Idwal at all. Only 1 could properly be said to involve the quality of the descent route, and that didn't involve injury, just a party being overdue.

So where's the regular and frequent callouts to climbers injured on the Idwal descent? The team stats just don't show them! It looks to me as if you're all hawking around a solution in search of a problem!

And yet *again*...if you want to protect the descent, take a frigging rope around the spike...where is the need for the ab chain?

Post2
Just to follow up...I've been back to 1996 in the MTR records this morning, and the *only* instance I could find of a callout to someone injured on the descent of Idwal Slabs was in October 2001.

There seems to be a stunning number of benightments on the slabs themselves, though...one team for 2 nights! Maybe a floodlit staircase with handrail down the centre of the slabs would reduce these events, which are running at an unacceptable level!

UNQUOTE

In reply to Si dH:

Hi Si,

I think we did Hope together, didn't we? I remember being a bit puzzled by the Twin Cracks until I saw the really easy solution. I suppose it's one of these moves that are desperate, if you don't look around for the holds that are a bit hidden, but really easy otherwise.
I have to agree though that from all the VDiffs I have done North Wales, Hope was probably the easiest.

The Arete on the continuation wall was a bit run-out, wasn't it?

In reply to Si dH:

And I also agree that Lazarus is at least a grade harder than Hope but then I did think at the time that Lazarus was a bit stiff at Severe (not sure what I would think now).

In reply to Rob Naylor:

I would love to know how anyone managed to get benighted on Idwal slabs for 2 nights. Must be the same pair of Brummies I met who took 48 hrs to climb the Matterhorn.

In reply to Craig_M:

So would I, but the 9th October 2000 OVMRO report just states the facts. As I said on the other thread:

QUOTE
In reply to johncoxmysteriously1:

It's the bald statement " cragfast for 2 nights!" that gets me.

I mean, how? Why? Where? The OVMRO are complete *bastards* for just leaving it at that. I want the *details*!!!

UNQUOTE

In reply to StefanB:
We did indeed. You led that pitch so I guess you may be able to make a better judgement of the difficulty (although I assume the gear was good?) but as you say, I thought it easy enough for a vdiff. One of those routes that is so nice-angled you can take a rest anywhere you want.
The Arete was very run-out, yes. Vdiff climbing but a no gear from 3m up until about 15m up, would be S, wouldn't have been good for a vdiff leader!
Hows things over in Spain?

In reply to JonC:

So did I, but I think I got lost and did one or two moves on the VS next to it :S

In reply to Si dH:


The gear is excellent and the move very easy, if one finds the not so obvious hold.


Everything is fine here. Work gets in the way of climbing, as evening sessions outdoors in summer are not possible due to the silly Spanish working hours.
It's getting a bit too hot for all the long trad routes I had planned, but preparations for some trips to the Pyrenees are in motion.

In reply to Jonno:

Which 2 or 3 moves? If you mean the twin cracks, they'd be graded Diff (low in the grade) if they were moved to Almscliff